Strata Group are the Structural and Civil Engineers on this exciting project.

A new marine refit facility expected to create a boom in marine jobs and deliver significant marine and tourism spending has been confirmed for Wynyard Quarter.

The development has been advanced after the signing today of a Development Agreement between the city’s redevelopment agency Panuku Development Auckland and leading marine services company Orams.

The new facility will feature a marine haul out and refit facility, commercial buildings and a residential tower on the northern end. It will target marine vessels up to 800 tonnes, which accounts for 85% of the world marine market.

Auckland Mayor Phil Goff says, “The new marine facility in the Wynyard Quarter is expected to generate more than 500 jobs including as many as 200 apprenticeships.

“A piece of currently poorly utilised land will become the heart of a thriving marine enterprises precinct, which carries on the historic presence of boat building in this area.

“Built in time for the America’s Cup 36 races, the precinct will benefit hugely from the refit work which will be generated during the challenge from visiting superyachts and vessels. There can be no better time to launch this facility.”

The facility will be developed on the corner of Beaumont and Jellicoe streets on a site that adjoins Orams Marine Village and is known as Site 18.

It will provide increased maintenance facilities for Auckland’s ferries, fishing vessels and commercial vessels. The majority of existing marine business on the site will be accommodated within the new development.

The development agreement is conditional on the approval of the New Zealand Overseas Investment Office, which is expected to be known late February 2019.

Orams Marine CEO Neven Barbour says their proposal is for an exemplar development, being a unique mix of marine and residential uses.

“This proposal is the result of numerous studies focused on adding sustainable value to the marine industry and Auckland’s economy.”

Orams Marine Services Managing Director Craig Park says the marine sector is an important economic contributor to New Zealand and Auckland, and the city has a strong reputation for quality marine work.

“The marine refit facility will create more than 500 jobs and generate significant income for the marine and tourism industries,” says Park.

“The establishment of the Orams Site 18 facility will ensure the opportunity for wider industry and economic benefits will not be lost to offshore competitors.”

Park says Site 18 is considered to be the only marine-zoned site, of significant scale, within the Auckland area able to deliver a facility of this nature, and as such both parties are keen to see this development progress.

As part of the development the existing seawall will be replaced and contamination remediation works undertaken.

Many thanks to Audrey and Hamish McHardy family for opening up their magnificent home to host the fundraising event which was a resounding success. $160,000 was raised, well above organisers’ expectations. Work on Stage 2 is now in underway.

Strata Group is proud to be sponsors of this fantastic project and look forward to seeing the progress over the coming months.

Director Guy Lethbridge and Draughting Technician Andrew Murphy had an unusual few days “on site” flying to the Scone River Bridge inland from Kaikoura to undertake a site assessment. A couple of months later, Andrew was back again installing the first prototype of the predator-proof gate to prevent possums, rats and stoats crossing the Bridge.

The project is featured in the Zero Invasive Predators (ZIP) Annual Report.

On 2nd May, seven Strata Group engineers attended a training course about how to undertake Rapid Building Usability Assessments (RPA) during a state of emergency. This training covered how the RPA system works to quickly establish usability of buildings and associated infrastructure when functions may be compromised by a hazard event.

This training will prove invaluable to the safety of our team of engineers should Hawke's Bay be faced with such an event - and our clients can rest assured that our staff can be contacted to act quickly and professionally should the need to assess their property ever arise.

We're proud to be sponsors of this talented bunch of guys again this season.

HBHS has a sharp side again this season and are currently in Fukuoka, Japan at the World Youth Rugby tournament, an invitation they won by winning the NZ comp last year. They won the ¼ final yesterday, and play the semi against Osaka at 4.30pm tomorrow. And hopefully the final on Saturday at 5pm!

The games are quality grass roots rugby and can be watched live on youtube - search for sanix rugby.

Almost 200 local government and IRD workers are abandoning their offices in two earthquake-prone buildings owned by Napier City Council.

The council admitted to being surprised on Wednesday by a report that found its four-storey library building on the corner of Station and Dalton streets had been rated as low as 15 per cent of the new building code at its weakest point.

The findings prompted Inland Revenue, which leases space on two floors of the building, to immediate direct its 78 Napier staff to work from home. About 100 council staff will continue to work in the building.

But the council said it was moving as quickly as it could to relocate 115 staff from its adjacent civic building, which rated even worse under the Strata Group engineering assessment.

The report found the 1967 civic building rated as low as 10 per cent of new building code at its weakest point.

Staff were briefed on the report’s findings, and the process of moving staff out of the building began on Wednesday, council chief executive Wayne Jack said.

“We will relocate all our teams and our front counter from the civic building, and are aiming to do this as quickly as we can,” he said.

A spokesman for IRD said the department had moved its 78 Hawke’s Bay staff out of the two floors it leases from the council in the library building.

Those staff had the capacity to work remotely from home, or other locations, and would do so until the situation was assessed.

Jack said the council had been surprised by the library building’s 15 per cent rating, but the issues were “relatively quick and simple to remediate”.

Minor work within the stairwells, and to improve the seatings for the precast units throughout the structure, would begin soon and was expected to bring the building up to close to 50 per cent of code.

Further work, which the council had already budgeted for, would then be undertaken to bring the building “as close to 100 per cent as possible”, Jack said.

But the Strata Group report points to demolition for the civic building, where the council has known for some time that seismic problems will be expensive to remedy.

It recently floated the idea of turning the library building into its main headquarters, and redeveloping the civic building site.

Strata Group director Guy Lethbridge said attempting to strengthen the civic building “would be a complex and widespread undertaking”, which engineers did not believe “represents value for money in that the strengthening costs could be more than a new build”.

On the other hand, “there is a strong case to be made for improving the strength of the Library Building, as this can be done through relatively straightforward works”.

Napier Mayor Bill Dalton said he was pleased the council had acted quickly to relocate its workers.

Staff had already started making preparations for “a range of scenarios” before receiving the Strata Group report. “One of those scenarios was the possibility that our teams would have to move out.”